School Committee — 2018-01-09
Agenda
- To discuss strategy with respect to pending open meeting law complaint when an open discussion may have a detrimental effect on the litigating position of the School Committee.
- To conduct strategy session in preparation for negotiations with the MEA.
- To approve executive session minutes of November 28, 2017
- Superintendent's Update (5 minutes)
- SEEM Annual Report (10 minutes)
- MVMMS Field Trip Request
- Cafeteria Report
- Monthly Budget Summary
- Warrants
- AlphaBEST Update (10 minutes)
- Competency Based Education: Update (5 minutes)
- Strategy Overview (20 minutes)
- Policy EBB: First Aid for a first vote (5 minutes)
- Policy EEAEA: Vehicle Driver Examination and Training for a first vote (5 minutes)
- Policy EFC: Reduced and Free Lunch Program for a first vote (5 minutes)
- No New Business
- School Committee Protocols (15 minutes)
- Liaison Reports (5 minutes)
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE MELROSE SCHOOL COMMITTEE MINUTES● JANUARY 9, 2018 Aldermanic Chamber, Melrose City Hall Regular Meeting 7:00 PM 562 Main Street, Melrose, MA 02176
(ID # 6182) Executive Session To discuss strategy with respect to pending open meeting law complaint when an open discussion may have a detrimental effect on the litigating position of the School Committee.
(ID # 6183) Executive Session To conduct strategy session in preparation for negotiations with the MEA.
(ID # 6184) Executive Session To approve executive session minutes of November 28, 2017
(ID # 6153) Announcements - Superintendent Superintendent's Update (5 minutes)
(ID # 6154) Announcements - Superintendent SEEM Annual Report (10 minutes)
(ID # 6178) Consent MVMMS Field Trip Request Adopted
(ID # 6155) Consent Cafeteria Report Adopted
(ID # 6157) Consent Monthly Budget Summary Adopted
(ID # 6158) Consent Warrants Adopted City of Melrose Page 1 Updated 1/16/2018 9:04 AM Minutes Melrose School Committee January 9, 2018
(ID # 6167) Educational Programs and Personnel AlphaBEST Update (10 minutes)
(ID # 6159) Educational Programs and Personnel Competency Based Education: Update (5 minutes)
(ID # 6160) Policy and Planning Strategy Overview (20 minutes)
(ID # 6170) Policy and Planning Policy EBB: First Aid for a first vote (5 minutes)
(ID # 6171) Policy and Planning Policy EEAEA: Vehicle Driver Examination and Training for a first vote (5 minutes)
(ID # 6172) Policy and Planning Policy EFC: Reduced and Free Lunch Program for a first vote (5 minutes)
(ID # 6175) Finance and Facilities No New Business
(ID # 6161) Announcements - Chair School Committee Protocols (15 minutes)
(ID # 6162) Announcements - Chair Liaison Reports (5 minutes) Note: The listed agenda items are those that are reasonably anticipated by the Chair to be discussed at the meeting. Not all items, in fact, may be discussed, and other items not listed also may be brought up for discussion to the extent permitted by law. City of Melrose Page 2 Updated 1/16/2018 9:04 AM
Transcript
▶ 0:00 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: Good evening and welcome to the Melrose School Committee meeting of January 9th, 2018. Let us please rise and say the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. That was an excellent Pledge of Allegiance. and just to note that this meeting is being recorded first on our agenda this evening as we welcome our new school committee members and we are delighted that they are here this evening we are also happy to welcome students and families from the lincoln elementary school so the lincoln lions are here to present to us and as i have told you and as i always
▶ 0:54 tell our groups we are so delighted having students come before us is the happiest thing that we do so i will invite the superintendent to open this part of our agenda thank and thank you mr driscoll uh principal cordock has brought with her seven students tonight and they have prepared information that they would like to share with the school committee and the community about some of the terrific things happening at the lincoln school so if Miss Kordak will come and introduce her students and then we'll let the students take over from there well good evening I am very happy that we get to be the first school committee meeting that so many of our new people get to be part of and join hopefully you remember this night not only from it
▶ 1:43 being your first but what we get to share about the great things that are going on at Lincoln so my name is Jenny Kordak and I'm the principal of the Lincoln School we're thrilled to be with you tonight as a spotlight school but before I turn the floor over to our students, I wanted to share some of the work we will embark on as we look forward to the second half of our school year. As many of you probably know, the Lincoln School in the last five years has had a variety of people who have held key positions. There have been principals, special education administrators, and school psychologists. Twice in my own career here in Melrose, I experienced a change in leadership and know firsthand that when any organization has changed the people involved inevitably
▶ 2:29 feel a range of emotion that usually includes anxiety and concern related to how this shift is going to affect them. Many of our staff are here with us tonight and they have weathered the ebbs and flows of our school showing up to work each day each week and each year doing what teachers do no matter the circumstances educating children to the very best of their ability as a result of the many changes that have come to our school over the last several years there is some repair work to do we need to help our families and our staff process the past while planning for our robust future the first part of this work is to assess the culture and climate of our school community which will ultimately help us
▶ 3:23 craft a thoughtful vision and mission statement which are key components to any organization organization success the accelerated improvement plan which is in draft form includes in more detail the plans for how we will conduct this critical work I look forward to working with our community to write the next chapter in lincoln's history this is our opportunity to define ourselves as a school community and what we'd like our students to achieve in the future now it's my privilege privilege to invite student council members to the table this is our first year having a student council our fifth grade teachers took the initiative to create a council at the end of last year and they will now share
▶ 4:09 some of the ways in which they have been lincoln lion leaders and the roles that they have taken on hello my name is emma and i will be talking about our back to school night back to school night is when parents can come to our school and look at their kids classrooms they can also hear speeches from the teachers and principal cordock student council's role at this event is to direct new families to the classrooms they desire to visit we were strategically stationed around the school to to guide parents to their children's classrooms. Hi, my name is Maddie and I'm in 5E. I'm going to talk about our all school meetings. At our all school meetings, we start with the Lincoln song. Then Ms. Cordick tells us what is new to the school.
▶ 5:07 We have an all school meeting once a month. One time, me and several other student council members created a skit about the three R's. And if we're good, we get to play a fun game the end of the assembly thank you hello my name is elena and i will be telling you about our school newspaper we publish once a season and our fall edition was just published there are five categories which are teacher spotlight grade spotlight lincoln history comics and the question of the season one to two people are in charge of each topic and they do an amazing job writing it Hi, my name is Kenzie, and I will be talking about the kindergarten involvement. As fifth graders, we are book buddies to kindergartners.
▶ 5:58 Every month, we read to our book buddies. Sometimes, they even read to us. Kindergarten tours are where kindergarten parents are shown the school by student council and decide if they want their child to come to our brilliant school. Next, our fellow council members will tell you about the Lincoln 3Rs. Hello, my name is Saqqan, and I will be telling you about the first one of the 3Rs, respectful. You can be respectful by listening to your teacher, being quiet in the hallway and line, and in many more ways. places to be respectful are classroom cafeteria field trips assembly and basically anywhere related to school you are not respectful when you y'all run around do things you're not supposed to do and most importantly when you talk
▶ 6:59 back to a adult or a teacher thank you hello I am Dylan and I'm a very responsible student I'm here to teach you about ways to be responsible first off you should clean up after yourself this should be done almost anywhere what not to do is leave it to someone else. This is bad for the other person. Really, this happens to me before. You should also keep your body safe. Again, this is for everywhere, and you should never not look out for your body, or else bad consequences could happen. Finally, you should take responsibility for your actions. When you do something bad or troublesome, what not to do is just say, I didn't do it. It's not honest. Thank you, that's all for me tonight okay so now my name is Henrik and I will be presenting
▶ 7:52 on how to be ready to learn at the Lincoln School if you're a student at Lincoln School you should get your work done efficiently listen to the speaker and stay on task while working you should do this working in pairs groups or alone you should also do this in class lessons and in specials you shouldn't fool around, rush on your work, and especially don't socialize at inappropriate times. We have a school spirit song to help remind us, remind about the three R's. We sing it at school meetings and during music class. Lincoln was a leader, we're Lincoln leaders too, and we're lucky to be somewhere where the love of learning school that was outstanding and I'm gonna ask the students to come back to
▶ 9:16 the microphones in case any of our school committee members have any questions for you committee members do you have any questions for our students today mr. Selm I seem to recall as an elementary school student that we had a song too, but I don't think it was nearly that cool. The three R's are, I think that's amazing that you are focused on those in the classroom. My question to you is, do you find that the three R's are helpful outside of the Lincoln School, and can you give an example? Well yes, they are. It's an important life skill to be able to be respectful to other people responsible in your actions and also well yes ready to learn but the skills within ready to learn yes that is good it's important to be respectful to other people responsible for everything
▶ 10:26 Jennifer McAndrew: that that you do and ready to learn for pretty much anything assignments tasks important life skill very good any other questions for our students miss McAndrew hi everybody so I have a comment and a question if that's okay my comment is thank you very much because for two things first of all I learned an awful lot about the Lincoln School which was great and secondly thank you for demonstrating such courage because it's really hard to get up in front of people at a microphone like you did and talk and know that people are even watching you on TV maybe and so I really appreciate that courage because you know tonight is actually my first time being here on the school committee and you guys gave me a lot of courage so thank you for that my question is how can I
▶ 11:41 get a copy of the student newspaper um you can just contact miss Corda okay the website oh it's on the website great very good let's work fun miss Rosie Thomas thank you very very much I love the spirit and enthusiasm that you all brought to your presentation I wanted to also ask you two questions one is are you all fifth graders yes so what has it been like to have a school without a school council and then what's it been like to have a school council this year um well when we were younger um since this is the first um student council we've had there wasn't many like it wasn't quite like when we were in like younger grades there wasn't um many big kids to like show us like what to do except when we were
▶ 12:45 and kindergarten are book buddies but other than that we haven't um in the younger grades we haven't had many like older kids like help us with other things i also think um all the grades including fifth grade have had a lot more like fun opportunities um like our monthly meetings have like skits and performances now to teach us about 3Rs and other things, so I think it's a lot more fun. Very good. Thank you. Any other questions? Mr. O'Connell. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for a great presentation. I love, and I think I speak for my colleagues as well, we love the idea that there are these school councils that you're involved with this but it makes me wonder if any of you ever think
▶ 13:43 about what comes next for you so when you go to the middle school we will you be involved with school government there do you think I think you have a good chance we have experience to put on we can put that we have experience on our application cards excellent and what about what about public office someday not not anytime soon I would would you like to be a member of the school committee or the Board of Aldermen good we'll keep up the good work and thank you again for tonight mr. Abrams key I work in a school could I borrow that song a little bit cuz what I work at the Lafayette school and it's similar enough to Lincoln where we're also the Lions I borrow that you guys think about it any other questions for our students seeing none don't go
▶ 14:53 anywhere parents if you'd like to take one very brief moment and take a quick picture from up here of your students sitting around the table you are welcome to do that at this time kids get a little closer so parents can one from this quarter thank you Lincoln Lions and thank you principal Kordak next on our agenda this evening is the report of the student representative common all right hello for the new members I'm common I'm the school representative for the high school I me or some other person usually shows up every meeting and gives a quick blurb about what's going on at the school so recently as I'm sure you've known we had winter vacation and then two days of school and then another
▶ 16:43 couple days off for the snow days which was nice you know a little surprise tomorrow's tomorrow the high school a cappella group is going to be performing hallelujah at Harvard University good luck to them the first AP study session will be this Saturday for the humanities midterms are starting next week they were pushed back starting on Thursday so Thursday Friday Monday Tuesday half days good luck to everyone who's taking them and the first MHS teach in community day is scheduled for January 24th where students will go to two teacher sponsored seminar style lessons centered on community involvement or you know just lessons ranging from how to make an app with a Sphero or how to make a good
▶ 17:30 pizza. In sports news, the boys swim team won last Wednesday against Burlington and have another meet tomorrow against Belmont. The boys basketball team won 60 to 38 and the girls team won 72 to 37 Saturday against Stoneham and are hosting Watertown tonight. The boys hockey team won 7 to 5 and the girls team won 4 to 3 against Stoneham on Saturday. And the gymnastics team have their season opener tonight in Reading good luck to them and finally the track team have their final meet tonight good luck to them this is the big one throughout they've been working for this all season and good luck to all the winter sports teams yes excellent any questions for Conlon seeing none Conlon I just want to please express to your friends at Melrose High School how well
▶ 18:22 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: they represented at last night's inauguration they were outstanding and an incredible representation of the gifts and and skills at Melrose high school and wonderful students so please express our appreciation thank you I'll be sure to pass along the message thank you so much next on our agenda is the election of chairman and vice chairman of the Melrose school committee for 2018 I will return to the horseshoe and superintendent Haymore will conduct the election thank you can we get the mayor to come back in thank you miss Farrell so miss Hogan will note that the mayor stepped away for a few moments yeah excuse me so in December at our last meeting at December which our former members were present we conducted a straw vote for chair and vice chair we are
▶ 19:43 required to do it for the purposes of a permanent chair and vice chair for the year once the new members are sworn in and take their seats so that's the procedure i will ask for nominations i will ask the nominees if they want to make a statement and then we will have a roll call vote during a roll call vote um i will ask you by name um yay or nay so uh it's a simple process for the first time for the new months uh are there any nominations for a chair madam secretary please mr o'connell thank you if i may nominate margaret driscoll to serve as chair for the coming year okay a second is not required for this process um are there any other nominees Ms. Driscoll, would you like to say a few words?
▶ 20:34 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: Thank you. I'd be delighted. It would be a privilege to serve you in the coming year. I'm looking forward to working with all of you. It's a very exciting opportunity for this body, for the future of the Melrose Public Schools, and certainly for the students themselves. So I would be grateful for your support, and I thank you for the time. Thank you. Is there any discussion by the members? Seeing none, I will ask for a roll call vote. Mr. Obramski? Yes. Mr. O'Connell? Yes. Ms. Driscoll? Yes. Ms. McAndrews? Yes. Mr. Selm? Yes. Ms. Rozzi-Thomas? Yes. And with that, it is six in favor with one absent. Now, I will do the same process for the Vice Chair. Are there any nominations for the Vice Chair?
▶ 21:27 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: Ms. Driscoll. May I please nominate Ed O'Connell. Thank you. Are there any other nominations at this time? Seeing none, Mr. O'Connell, would you like to make a statement? Simply that I'd be honored to serve. Thank you. Any discussion by the members? Seeing none, I will do a roll call vote beginning on the opposite side. Ms. Rozzy-Thomas? Yes. Mr. Selm? Yes. Ms. McAndrews? Yes. Ms. Driscoll? Yes. Mr. O'Connell? Yes. Mr. Obromski? Yes. And again, we have a six in favor, one absent. Thank you for your time, everyone, on that. Next on our agenda this evening, we will be in need of an executive session. to approve the executive session minutes of November 28th 2017 to discuss strategy with respect to pending open meeting law complaint when an open
▶ 22:29 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: meeting when an open discussion may have a detrimental effect on the litigating position of the school committee and to conduct strategy session in preparation for negotiations with the MEA we will return to public session may I have a roll call vote a motion a second and a roll call vote to enter into executive session so moved second made by mr. O'Connell seconded by Ms. DeSelm madam recording secretary may I have a roll call vote please mr. O'Brimskey yes mr. O'Connell yes miss McAndrew yes mr. Selm yes miss Rossi-Thomas yes miss Driscoll yes again we are now adjourned to executive session and we will return to public session we have now returned Adam is welcome to stay anytime we have now returned to public session and I am
▶ 23:29 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: pleased to report that the committee in executive session has motioned and accepted to approve disclose and make available to the public upon request in accordance with the Massachusetts open meeting law and public records law the Minutes of executive session held on November 28, 2017, subject to redactions recommended by the chair and or counsel based on a determination that disclosure would defeat the lawful purpose of the executive session. I would also like to read a statement. As discussed this evening, an open meeting law complaint was filed on December 12, 2017, bringing to the committee's attention that an official roll call vote was not taken at the November 28, 2017 meeting to enter into executive session.
▶ 24:18 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: The committee acknowledges that this was a mistake and failed to satisfy the technical requirements of the law. The committee would like to remediate the error by stating that on November 28th, 2017. The following votes were yeas. Edward O'Connell, Jamie McAllister-Grand, Jessica Dugan, Lizbeth DeSelm, and Margaret Triskell and Robert Dolan and Christine Casatelli were absent. The meeting minutes from the November 28th, 2017 will be updated to reflect this action. The committee will work to avoid such errors in the future. Next on our agenda this evening is the public comment portion of our evening. I would entertain a motion to open public comment. So moved. Second. Made by Mr. O'Connell, seconded by Ms. DeSelm.
▶ 25:07 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: Discussion? Seeing none. All in favor? Opposed? That motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Is there anyone who would like to speak this evening? Seeing none, I would entertain a motion to close public comment. so moved made by Ms. DeSelm do I have a second second seconded by Ms. Rozzi Thomas is there discussion seeing none all in favor opposed that motion carries unanimously next on our agenda is the announcements of the superintendent of schools thank you Ms. Driscoll one announcement which is about she excuse me our middle school and high school joining the New England Secondary School Consortium, League of Secondary Schools. Those of you who know that we have been working on competency-based education for well over two years
▶ 25:58 at this point, we were excited to learn that Massachusetts has finally joined the consortium. We were the only state among the New England states that wasn't part of the consortium. When we were notified that they were going to join, We were invited to apply, we did so immediately. We are the first city in Massachusetts to become part of the consortium. We look forward to working with them and advancing our work in CBE through the opportunities they will provide. I had previously reported to you that we had joined Maple, which is another organization at the state level, which is the Massachusetts Personalized Learning Ed Tech Consortium. maple um will also be part of the new england consortium and as a member of maple we've already
▶ 26:51 begun to realize opportunities for professional development visiting other schools and seeing what some of our colleagues are doing in competency-based education so we're hoping that both memberships will help advance our work in those areas any questions regarding the superintendent's just a comment and I thank you to the superintendent for keeping us out in front on this it's great work and it reflects well on us in our community and it's great to see us leading the Commonwealth and bringing the Commonwealth along so thank you for all the work that went into that superintendent um you have the same annual report as you know is required under the regulatory guidance for belonging to a educational collaborative collaborative that
▶ 27:50 yearly we must present the report to you as well as their audit report and what you have in front of you is their annual report i would call your attention to pay packet page 11 which outlines the collaborative objectives and just a brief discussion as I have said to you before we have been very fortunate in Kathy Lawson as the executive director of SIEM because she has listened to the 10 member communities that we want SIEM to be about more than special education and to that end she has added services and opportunities for general ed as well they have taken the lead on training such as the sheltered English immersion training crisis intervention training and other important opportunities for our staff and that is a cost-saving and
▶ 28:42 a resource for us some of the services we that they provide us or ones that it would just be too expensive for us to manage on our own or to contract out on our own assistive technology hearing and peer peer consultation visually impaired consultation all are provided by SIEM we do not avail ourselves of their transportation because as you all know we have our own mini fleet of vans that we use for special education but occasionally we do contract with North reading and seam acts as the agent for north reading transportation when we need to contract with them the other important thing is as you read this and I hope you all read it you do remember we lease two buildings to seem at the BB and the Ripley for two very important programs and they are very full at both
▶ 29:44 buildings the last thing that I would quickly point out to you is page 29 of their of their information which shows you what it costs for a scene program as opposed to some of the out of district programs that we may use for similarly diagnosed children and again the purpose of a special education collaborative is to help districts control costs we currently have nine children at seam or did at the end of last year one of their programs that is more fluid is their assessment center it's a 45-day assessment center that when we have a child who has particular challenges social emotional or behavioral and we're having difficulty getting a handle on underlying causes we will place a child there with parents permission for 45 days so that they can do more of a
▶ 30:43 wraparound analysis than we can do in our buildings and then they provide us with recommendations so again that is the same annual program you have the audit the audit again is very good I just want to again draw your ears vision to one particular thing that scene board did and I acting as your representative as we all know within the state in the pension boards there is a vulnerability and we have all been charged with beefing up our pension savings for public employees last year the scene board made a decision to join a trust fund to manage those monies to hopefully grow them at a better rate and the scene board transferred a large sum of money approximately $500,000 into the trust fund so I believe it shows up in the report as a negative but we have
▶ 31:43 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: been audited and we are compliant with all regulatory requirements questions for the superintendent on the C manual report seeing none next on our agenda is the consent agenda so for explanation for those who are watching tonight the consent agenda you will see contains a variety of items which could be placed on a subcommittee agenda but as tradition has had it go into a consent agenda because they are generally thought to be relatively straightforward and might not engender substantive conversation any member is welcome to pull any item off if he or she wishes to have it discussed so the process for the consent agenda is I will announce what is on the consent agenda I will ask if anyone would like to pull anything off then we will have a motion a second and
▶ 32:50 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: a vote so the consent agenda is not discussed only items under the sub committees are discussed so first as noted I would indicate that tonight's consent agenda includes the school committee regular meeting minutes of December 12 2017 the MVM MS field trip request the cafeteria report the monthly budget summary and the warrants as follows FY 18 school s 1 8 0 2 1 in the amount of four hundred and seventy nine thousand five hundred ninety one dollars and eighty five cents FY 18 November meals tax s 1 8 0 2 2 in the amount of eighty two dollars and eleven cents and FY 18 December MV MMS wire transfer s 1 8 0 2 3 and the amount of 294 dollars and 35 cents I will note that I am going to pull the school committee regular meeting minutes of December 12 2017 and
▶ 33:49 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: they will be added to the announcements of the chair would anyone else like to pull off any item from the consent agenda seeing none do i have a motion for approval made by mr selm do i have a second second seconded by mr o'connell all in favor opposed that motion carries unanimously next on our agenda are our subcommittees first of which this evening is the educational programs and personnel subcommittee first on that agenda is the alpha bust update and i will invite the superintendent to speak to that item please thank you ms driscoll i will ask ms farrell to come forward on that as you all know approximately a year ago at this time we We had to make a decision about our summer program, and we went with a vendor, as Ed
▶ 34:49 Stations would no longer be overseeing that program. We contracted with Alphabest, which has a good reputation, is in many school systems, including our neighbors in Malden, and I believe our neighbors in Revere, and they were able to accommodate us and quickly put together a program at short notice granted it was short notice but we're grateful that we were able to service approximately 85 children a week and I will allow miss Farrell to provide you with the report that reviews what happened last summer so as the superintendent said we had we're here I think at this time last year talking about the need to come up with some summer programming for our families and alpha best came in on short notice it was able to put a program together that
▶ 35:45 ran for eight weeks as the superintendent said we had approximately 85 students participating in the program and the feedback that we've received has been positive it had similarities to the program that we had run in the past with different themes and activities in a wide variety of areas a lot of our own employees in the past also worked for them this summer so there was that familiarity with our children we have been in negotiations with them to provide the programming for this summer we are expanding it to a ten week program so it will pick up as soon as school is out and take us through the summer they are very excited to get started once we present it to you they are looking at no increases in the cost of the program and getting out ASAP with
▶ 36:46 information to families so that they can get registered sooner this year they'll also do an information night as they did in the past and they are very willing to come forward at a meeting if you wish to speak more about the program but we are working with them later this week to finalize the agreement and hopefully to get it out to families by the end of this month so that they'll know the dates and the procedure and the signups and in all the information so I'm happy to answer anything you have a lot of details here regarding costs and enrollments and expectations superintendent did indicate that we were able to collect $10,000 in that short period of time and their expectation is that they would be able to double that for next year to $20,000 questions for
▶ 37:43 Miss Farrell or superintendent Amar mr. O'Connell thank you through the chair to miss Farrell thank you for providing this information and maybe to the superintendent as well do we or they conduct any type of end of summer program review you mentioned feedback but is there a document is there a survey is there they did their own survey and again they're not working for us so but they did do a survey and I can say that over the summer we did not receive a single call at all and believe me we get the calls if there's something that's not and so surveys done is it was that shared with you with the superintendent yes okay is it appropriate to ask that that be shared with us as well because people of course are going to come to us with comments
▶ 38:41 questions and undoubtedly complaints unfortunately not going to come to us and say it was great they're gonna come and say this program isn't great it would be great for us as elected officials to be able to talk with some degree of well I think the the issue is is you have a very short window here because there's only 85 students and not and you when you do a survey you know you don't get the full participation so sure I don't know exactly how many they got back but again whether we have their survey information or not I think the fact that we did not receive any phone calls with regard to any concerns through the whole summer and we were here we were in the building we ran two other programs in the building we were there on a daily basis we observed it
▶ 39:30 you know like anything else they said you know the first day we did it it was not as great as the second day and the third day and once they got to know our students and our systems by the end they had a well-oiled machine that as they would say but we can that would be great I really appreciate that further questions see none we will move on to our next agenda item which is competency-based education superintendency thank you so a brief base update on where we are on CBE and you know a shout out to miss Rosie Thomas who has been on this journey with us since the first inkling and so this is very slow work there is no magic bullet there is no box of materials that you buy from Pearson and ask them and that you roll out CBE it's very strong
▶ 40:28 it's very slow work we're fortunate in Massachusetts that we have strong frameworks with strong standards and those standards are we're building upon those standards as we identify competencies so we have a coach that we like very much we have directors who are invested we have teachers who invested one of whom is with us tonight and we have been slowly building teachers understanding we have developed our habits of learning we've agreed upon those and we're beginning to pilot those the three seventh grade team leaders at the middle school are all piloting them there are some scattered elementary and high school teachers piloting them and we're looking forward to their feedback back in the spring on what worked and what did not work music and art PE have
▶ 41:21 their proficiency standards done they're working on their scoring criteria humanities will be working later this month on a full day of working on their scoring criteria the work is progressing what I would remind the committee is this is work that gets done with everything else every every every conceivable thing that we're responsible for this is just one more thing we have used early release days where teachers have voluntary got voluntarily gotten together we used our PD day in November we use after school we quite honestly have pulled teachers from class for a half day of work usually we do it on a half an early release day so that they're only missing a half a day and not a full day and if you go to the third page of my memo what we did is we
▶ 42:16 compiled for you a quick list of everything that we have done since we first brought this to you with the working group in the 1516 school year so that's where we're at I will tell you that as you know the bar foundation has funded this for two years this is the second year I've already met with several people about more money because that's what we have to do but the directors and dr. Adams feel that if we don't get additional funding we are sufficiently trained that we can continue on our own it may be a little bit slower without a coach Jenny Curtin from the bar foundation is coming to visit us on January 26 to see what we've done I think our work speaks for itself the fact that one of I like to believe because I like to brag about our people
▶ 43:18 and what they do one of the reasons that Massachusetts joined the League of innovative schools is because they came to see us and Jesse came to see us in October to talk to us about the work we were doing and we explained to them what we were trying to achieve where we were trying to go how we were using the Massachusetts frameworks as a stepping-off point not reinventing anything and that we felt that the state could go this route as well and so I think we have a lot done again I remind the committee there is no one set model there is not one set approach to this and when you read the research and all in this field they're very explicit about that in the end our responsibilities to decide what does this look like in Melrose how much of
▶ 44:15 this do we want to implement do we want to do at k12 do we just want to do secondary do we just want to do elementary you know we're very excited about the habits of learning I think it is crucial that you know you heard the young people from Lincoln talk about the three R's social emotional development kids having good habits for success is crucial in the 21st century workplace but I think it's just as important that we separate it from academic knowledge because for many of our kids they're successful here but they struggle here and the struggle here is often developmental age-appropriate and having lived through it with one of those kids as a child one of my children kids shouldn't be punished because they didn't pass in all ten homeworks when
▶ 45:08 they can ace the exam and how do we help the child understand the importance of homework the importance of being responsible respectful and collaborative not completing homework but the purpose of homework and the habits of learning goes to all that questions for the superintendent mr. o'connor thank you through the chair to the superintendent I should I'll say I'm always thanking you for your work on this and and I'm always remiss and not thanking people like miss Razzie Thomas and our administrators and educators who spent and as you've described an inordinate amount of time on this all time well spent the bar foundation money how much did we spend over two years and and that's likely going away likely not to be replaced we aggressively pursuing a
▶ 46:06 replacement great might any of those bucks come from Desi not at this point What they're gonna give us through the league and through Maple is opportunities for site visits, collaboration with other schools, professional development. Through Maple, we've already done that. And Mr. Azir is here, and with the committee's indulgence, if he wants to speak, I would like him to speak. We send people out to see other school systems to see what they're doing, to see where we are in comparison with the work to see what ideas we could big borrow or steal from them and recently we went out to see a district on the North Shore which will remain unnamed and the staff came back and said I think we're ahead of them and
▶ 47:03 yet they're being touted as a place to visit so now I'm going to allow people to come see us and see the work we're doing and again that's an important great schools partnerships was arranging all that for us now Maple and the Lee can help us arrange that there's meetings you all remember you all supported me going to that meeting almost two years ago already so I can meet with other administrators and teachers in this field and exchange ideas we will have those type of opportunities as well we needed a network we were we were traveling to Maine New Hampshire Rhode Island we've never went to Vermont you know so it gives us a network it gives us people to collaborate with that's great and per your suggestion I for one would love to
▶ 47:59 hear from mr. Asia if only briefly to get is a teacher perspective on this that's what you get for hanging around Adam Adam Asia I teach seventh grade English at the middle school do you want just riff on it or your first away okay so and I'll just say that I speak for myself only in my experience as a teacher a member of the Union I don't think for the Union or the teachers collectively but just my own personal experience and and desires I'm a big fan of the thinking about and working within competency competency based education the pilot that we're undertaking that I'm part of is just to give you a specific example so if I had kids read a couple of chapters from book we just finished the Outsiders and often I would give a reading guide which asks
▶ 48:56 questions that answering those questions successfully is evidence that kids have met a particular standard or either through a reading or writing standard so that's what I'm assessing so if it's due on Wednesday and someone doesn't hand it on Wednesday well typically what we would do is and every teacher really has their own policy so let's say it was worth 20 points some teacher might say if it's you lose a point every day or after it was due you can only get half credit but then that comes to the question of what are we assessing right so really we're assessing two different things and one of the things we're assessing is can you hand something in on time which is an absolute thing that I think that we shouldn't be assessing of seventh graders you have an
▶ 49:40 assignment due on a certain day can you hand it in on time but in my opinion that's it and again my opinion that's a separate grade then can you read something and determine the a theme or can you understand both the literal and figurative meaning of what the author is trying to say right those are two separate things so that's what we're trying to separate in this pilot one of the questions that's come up in my mind and talking to my colleagues and this is just the question this isn't a defiant response it's just what we're thinking about as a challenge which is how do I translate that to a great because that's a big challenge so right now the way that I'm we're working this pilot is all right so you get us so right now I have two buckets for grades which is did you
▶ 50:25 hand this in on time sort of these five habits of learning and then the content standards that I'm assessing so let's say something was due on Wednesday and someone turned in on Friday so did you successfully turn something on on time no you didn't so you get a zero so it's a score of a zero but we've waited that at zero percent so it doesn't affect the students overall grade and then when they turn the assignment in on Friday I assess it for the standards that I'm literally trying to assess it for one of the challenges that we're thinking about now we don't have an answer and again this is right a long process is let's say over the course of the first half of the trimester I've assigned ten content
▶ 51:05 assignments but somebody's only handed in two of those but they've met the particular standards but they've only handed in two of the ten assignments and so in Aspen that what's right now say a hundred percent a plus which says one thing but actually means another thing so right now we're wrestling with how do we translate that how do we report that and I'll just send my own personal opinion and we can talk about it later if we want I think in middle school you should get rid of the grades because people are gonna be looking for the grades and not looking at and this is again just my own personal opinion right can can a student read a text and determine the theme or central idea that's one of the state standards right which isn't everyone in the world would
▶ 51:50 agree that that's we want our seventh graders to be able to do that so that's what we should focus on not translating that into a lender there's a lot of ways to get a B plus in my class right now so and again that's why it's such a long process because teachers are struggling they're struggling with the transition from traditional practice to a different approach and you heard Adam say several times that's the standard I'm measuring that's the proficiency we know very clearly what the proficiencies are students should be able to read at at least grade level and interpret a text for a specific aspect whether it's it's setting tone theme those those that's the standard you're measuring them for
▶ 52:38 one of the challenges is you we do get kids who could do that the first time out now what are you gonna do so these are all the things we have to begin to sort through as we work our way through this and then we'll get kids who will never be able to do it and what do we do so there is a lot of work to do on this the last thing that will happen is the report card one of the places we've we have visited twice went to a hybrid report card because parents can't disengage from grades okay so they went to a hybrid the standard in the grade or the standard the grade and the habits of learning or the habits of work whatever they may call it there please remember those of you with young children you're
▶ 53:26 doing standards-based report cards we have slowly been converting the elementary school to that point where through grade 4 this year next year will be through grade 5 so what we're anticipating is in two years something Adam has inferred I've never had a middle school kid I've only had an elementary school kid I've only seen a standards-based report card I get to the middle school and I'm looking for my standards because I am a parent of an educated to know whether a kid is meeting a standard progressing towards a standard exceeding a standard so there is a lot to keep happening here but I'm grateful for the teachers who are willing to pilot because until we pilot we can't really know we can you can you can create this in theory as an abstract
▶ 54:17 but we had to get finally to the point where we said we've got to test this in the classroom and that's what we've begun to do further questions mr. O'Connor are you just a quick follow-up Thank You mr. for being here and for that in your personal professional opinion is this time well spent for a teacher like you oh yes absolutely but I mean the more and for any job that you do right the more explicit you can be about decisions that you're making I'm gonna feel personally my instincts are are good sometimes great sometimes not good but on average they're pretty good but this is forcing me even more to be explicit about the decisions and choices I'm making both in the content that I'm putting in front of my kids but also in the way in which I'm assessing their
▶ 55:03 mastery or proficiency of the skills and content that we're putting in front of them thank you very much you have to be very explicit to kids what you expect this is enforced this is forcing us to be very clear to kids this is the standard we are measuring in order to get to this standard you have to do X Y and Z and that really I think is impacting a lot of people's thinking and how they plan their lessons and what they teach mr. Salman and miss Rossi Thomas so through the chair to mr. Asia first please extend our thanks to your colleagues who are all undertaking this endeavor you have a special a special warm and fuzzy place in my heart as you try to undertake this in a seventh grade level with students who are still figuring themselves out let alone what
▶ 56:07 means to be a student so really thank you from the bottom of my heart this the the the separating out what you are asking can they turn something in versus can they meet a standard is a question that any of us as parents of kids that that have gone through school are, are, are put, just parent, parents. We understand this intuitively. Yes, they can clean their room. Did they do it by the time I asked them to? That we are delving into this in a formal academic setting. And that we are trailblazing. As my colleague, Mr. O'Connell said, not only bodes well on us, but bodes well for our future as well. And I can't thank the superintendent, my colleagues present and former on the school committee,
▶ 57:24 and the teachers and administrators that support you in doing this work. it is truly valuable and meaningful and thank you thank you thank you and thank you for trying to update our old-fashioned education system quite quite a task yeah I wanted to ask you what you were hoping the transferable skills are for your students like you know in ten years after they're they're done with seventh grade where do you hope that they are in their lives what are the skills that you hope that they take from those habits of learning yeah they're not I don't have them memorized but they're not far off of the five habits of learning that that we're evaluating or assessing in the pilot program but they're like okay can I meet deadlines and if I can't skill do I have
▶ 58:20 to sort of to manage that or what what are the resources I have at my disposal disposal to figure out how to solve this problem how can I collaborate with people at my level like could I text my friend and say what's the homework right that translates to ten years from now could I ask my co-worker how to do the TPS report or whatever it is or how do I talk to my boss about I'm just having trouble meeting this deadline can we talk about it right so those are certainly very transferable skills thank you yeah further questions seeing none thank you so much you're welcome thank you thank you well thank you for the opportunity next on our agenda is the policy and planning subcommittee first on that subcommittee is the strategy overview and I will invite the
▶ 59:14 the superintendent to give a very brief history. Will you like to talk about it? I do. And you're proud of it, so I'm encouraging you to be concise. So you have the old-fashioned version. I usually, I had converted to giving you a link on the website, but Jamie McAllister-Gran liked the multicolored version, and so did Mr. O'Connell, so I brought it back. And so basically, the history of a strategy overview this I'd say about eight nine years ago on the state took an active interest in how superintendents get trained and they partnered with MASS my professional association and Harvard University and created a training program that many of us now have gone through and one of the things that you come out of that program
▶ 1:00:04 with is an approach to strategic planning so that you can control your resources you can control how much work you're trying to focus on and you can set priorities and this is our fifth iteration of it because it builds on previous versions it builds on work accomplished it takes into account where new challenges come into play competency-based education being one that came into play two years ago social-emotional learning about four years ago and every year a team of teachers administrators and I meet in late June early July and review the work we've accomplished for the year and we set goals for this new year the goals are aligned with the district's goals that we'll talk about next week when we do the budget narrative next
▶ 1:01:03 meeting this is not this is based on a lot of input we do a number of surveys during the year we do a tech survey with our staff we do a PD survey with our staff like most districts we are constantly collecting data on our children we do beginning of the year middle of the year end of the year progress monitoring there's classroom visits there's team walkthroughs and we keep reporting out to you how we're progressing against our priorities so that you know the work that's being done I think it mr. mr. O'Connell is the one who had an aha moment a couple of years ago and said this is basically everything you do on a daily basis and I said beyond the regulatory stuff yes it is this is the teaching and learning that we care about the most so
▶ 1:02:01 interesting enough this summer and you can go back on the website and look at previous ones interesting enough at this summer when we met the content facilitators the elementary instructional leaders are in the room the educational team facilitators the SPED people are in the room all the administrators this year I had a couple of teachers say to me can I just sit in and I said sure why not I will as an aside they're working on their PhDs and so it was the teachers that said to me can you step back and rethink the priorities we think that we've been doing this long enough as a district that our original priorities were planning curriculum and content instructional strategies assessment the four cornerstones of any good
▶ 1:02:54 instruction and they said would you consider aligning your priorities with the teachers evaluation rubric and I said make a case to me and they said we want teachers to clearly understand the connection between what we're working on and how they're going to be evaluated on implementing that work so it's not a a one-to-one correlation with the rubric but it's pretty close those of you who have been subjected to the rubric or use the rubric and there's what three of us in the room you know you see curriculum planning and assessment teaching all students responsive and inclusive environments which is basically an indicator not a standard on the rubric and professional culture and community engagement so with their input we shifted our objectives and then after
▶ 1:03:51 that we went on and we revised or added new priorities the priorities are in black the work that's been done to date is in red so we updated three times a year agenda right right September mid-year and then towards the end of the year we'll do it again questions for the superintendent mr. o'connor so I think I actually once that I hated this document and I was sitting next to you madam superintendent and you you bristled at that and rightly so I hated it because I didn't understand it and I think I do now so there's a little bit of progress there in this document it's worth noting is really more about you and your work it doesn't ask us necessarily for a vote it's not so much informative but it's a
▶ 1:04:44 record of what you're doing so I'm happy to say that I love this document it makes sense to me love after all it's a much different perspective right love will keep us together a couple of things I wanted to do a couple of things I wanted to note I'm heartened to see that the Humanities Department is taking up the cause of the civics requirement that's coming down the road I think that's great, needed, necessary, appropriate, prudent, and all around right thing to do. The other thing I would just comment on briefly, also heartened to see the references to restorative justice. This is another thing I think like competency-based education that we have been out in front of and leading on. And now at every turn in education and elsewhere we read
▶ 1:05:38 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: about restorative justice as the way things are done as the wave of the future and we have been doing it for a while mr. Asia in fact has been at the forefront of this so I think all good stuff thank you for that further questions seeing none next on our agenda there are three policies our process will be as follows on the December 12th agenda you would have seen these policies for informational review and our process is that then we would have a first vote at our next meeting we would have a second vote generally that is included in the consent agenda unless it is determined that there might be substantive conversation that would lend itself better to subcommittee discussion so for tonight I'm going to invite a vote around each policy separately there
▶ 1:06:39 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: are times when we combine them and times when we do them separately these are quite different so I would invite us to vote them separately for each one I would like to number one thank mr. O'Connell for preparing these for our consideration and I will invite him to speak to each one before we entertain a motion or any discussion on each one so mr. O'Connell if you would like to proceed with policy e BB first aid I would I would be delighted sure thank you for that madam chair with this policy as with the other two that are before us again these were before us in December 12th for informational purposes these three are on our agenda as part of our ongoing update of our policies pursuant to the Mass Association school committee's update of their model policy
▶ 1:07:37 so we're tracking the updates that that they undertook and the proposed revisions to policy EBB speak to that as well and in this instance as with the mask update our update reflects best practices with regard to first aid very good I would entertain a motion for approval so second made by mr. Selms seconded by miss Rosie Thomas is there any discussion on this policy seeing none all in favor opposed that motion carries unanimously next is policy EEA vehicle driver examination and training mr o'connor again an update pursuant to the mass policy update again it's intended to reflect current best practices uh with regard to vehicle driver examination and training very good may i have a motion for approval
▶ 1:08:41 second made by ms mccandrew seconded by ms de selm is there any discussion Only that I wish to point out that for us to have explicitly put that we will determine whether or not the driver is free of tuberculosis, this must have been a problem at some point. I should hope that we would have high enough standards that our drivers aren't carrying communicable diseases superintendent confirms that that to be the case just saying any other questions is there any further discussion seeing none all in favor opposed that wishing carries unanimously and last we have policy EFC reduced and free lunch program mr. O'Connell again in accordance with the policy update reflecting best practices. We do have in the body a slight
▶ 1:09:52 amendment in the third paragraph as can be seen and as it states we're required under state and federal regulations to issue a policy statement with regard to the eligibility for free milk, free meals, and reduced price meals. This policy is in effect that policy statement very good man to attend a motion for approval by mr. Obramski seconded by mr. Ozzie Thomas is there discussion just side note in the policy of the city is it any child on a free reduced lunch program and gets free recreational programs and it's what the new members to know that so we have a sizable population so they receive three programs throughout the summer throughout the year that was but again by the Park Commission thank you
▶ 1:10:45 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: and the reason why we need to make sure you have this policy is when Chotwell submits for the reimbursement they have to prove that we have a policy that the school committee has approved very good unless there is further discussion all in favor opposed that motion carries unanimously there is nothing on tonight's Finance and facilities subcommittee however I do promise you that in the future that particular subcommittee will be robust shall we say under the announcements of the school committee chair first we will take up the school committee regular meeting minutes of December 12 2017 there were four of us who were I believe present at that time and at this point I would entertain a motion for approval so moved second made by mr. O'Connell seconded by mr. Selm
▶ 1:11:48 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: all in favor opposed that motion carries unanimously next on our agenda is the school committee protocols before you you will see the protocols that the prior committee has agreed to those are essentially the same protocols that have been used for the last number of years under normal circumstances this is something that we would approve tonight but given that the mayor is going to be doing some different things in the future and we will have potentially someone new sitting before us I would like us to take this up at that time instead of doing it twice so I would certainly presume and expect that we would all read them understand them and that I have every confidence that whether we have a document on before us to sign or not that we would all embrace
▶ 1:12:49 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: these behaviors and norms and protocols and and live by them unless there are further questions we'll move on to the next agenda item seeing none the next agenda item is the liaison reports as everybody knows I'm sure we have many ways to engage with our community with a lot of different groups and associations which is very exciting and one of the best parts I would say of our job if I could be so bold so at this time we would certainly entertain anybody's experience with one of the groups for which we have liaison appointments and then note that at the next meeting which will be officially our organizing meeting for those kinds of assignments we'll have more structure around that but certainly anyone is welcome to provide information around attendance at
▶ 1:13:45 any of those events so this next weekend sorry will be the MLK Day of Service and MLK weekend. As always, the Melrose Human Rights Commission will be hosting a dinner and a presentation. In collaboration with Melrose Public Schools, they have collected essays with regards to the MLK Day holiday and they They have parsed out, there will be more awards than before. They have parsed them out by different grade levels as opposed to strictly elementary, middle school, and high school. So it looks to be a more full and complete event with a wider range of response. And all are encouraged to attend, participate, and service to the community above and beyond ways we already are and the high school honor chorus will be performing two songs at the dinner we have arranged
▶ 1:14:55 Margaret Raymond Driscoll: for that as well so I think that's admirable our kids giving up a Monday night of a three-day weekend any other liaison reports this evening if I may certainly it's admirable that our kids are but it's also admirable that Miss kim piper yes we'll be giving that up as well yeah and participating anything further seeing none that wraps up our agenda i would entertain a motion to adjourn move to adjourn by mr obramsky second seconded by ms de salem discussion seeing none all in favor opposed and we are adjourned